A wide variety of mental and physical processes are controlled or influenced by neural activity in particular regions of the brain. For example, the neural functions in some areas of the brain (i.e., the sensory or motor cortices) are organized according to physical or cognitive functions. In general, particular areas of the brain appear to have distinct functions in most individuals. In the majority of people, for example, the areas of the occipital lobes relate to vision, the regions of the left interior frontal lobes relate to language, and the regions of the cerebral cortex appear to be consistently involved with conscious awareness, memory, and intellect.
Many problems or abnormalities with body functions can be caused by dysfunction, damage, disease and/or disorders in the brain. Effectively treating such abnormalities may be very difficult. Epidemiological profiles indicate that the treatment and/or rehabilitation of neurologic dysfunction is extremely challenging due to patient population heterogeneity, for example, due to factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, cause, physiologic location, severity, and time since onset. For most patients exhibiting neurologic damage arising from, for example, a stroke, conventional treatments are not sufficient, and little can be done to significantly improve the function of an affected body part or cognitive function beyond the limited recovery that generally occurs naturally without intervention.
Optical monitoring may facilitate the evaluation of various types of tissue conditions and/or properties, for example, through near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). A need exists for neural stimulation systems and methods that include or incorporate particular optical monitoring techniques.